nsnbc : King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has scaled up his terror against two of his daughters, princesses Sahar and Jawaher, who have been kept in house-arrest for years for lobbying for human and women’s rights, by denying them food and water.
What else would one expect in a country that publicly beheaded a woman on sorcery charges in 2011 and is the world’s leading sponsor of Al-Qaeda terrorism.
The two daughters of his divorced wife have been held detained for about 13 years since they fell out of his majesties favor for speaking out against the ill-treatment of women in the Gulf Kingdom.
The ill-treatment of Sahar and Jawaher is, according to some sources also caused by a bitter divorce due to the fact that the princesses’ mother could not deliver a son. If true, it is just one more sign of the backwardness of the medieval Saudi – Wahhabi culture and the head of the royal family who yet has to keep up with the fact that the gender of children usually depends on the father.
Princesses Sahar and Jawaher managed to contact the Russian TV Channel RT via Skype and reported that they are being kept against their will in two mansions, inside the royal palace in Jeddah.
The two are kept there along with two other sisters, Maha and Hala, they said, adding that they had been deprived of food for several days and only had very little access to water. Talking to RT via Skype, they said:
“It’s a horrible situation, its forced starvation, basically. They are confining us, depriving us of food and water, freedom and rights. We are struggling, we are surviving, we are resisting, we are trying our best to stay alive”.
Knowing that they were taking a risk by speaking out in public, they asked how it would be possible to continue living like this, adding that they had to take the risk and to speak out. Demanding accountability for the predicament they are in, they said:
“The king and his sons have to answer these questions: What are we charged with? What exactly is our crime? What is the crime of the 99 percent of women in this country who are basically suffering under male guardianship? A male guardian can do whatever he wants; cut off everything and she is left with nothing. … We are making these statements right now (to) gain our freedoms”.
Their mother, Alanoud Al-Fayez, has made several futile attempts to appeal for help from political leaders. The fact that the U.S. Administration is turning a blind eye. however, is hardly surprising. There is no geopolitical benefit to be harvested from advocating the two girls rights, as there is with from the U.S. sudden interest in kidnapped Nigerian girls which resulted in an increased U.S. military footprint in the oil-rich African nation.
The director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, Ali Al-Ahmed, told RT that he believes the grave human rights situation in the kingdom is compounded by a political strategy from the outside, whose purpose is to keep any negative press at bay, and is a force to either change things for the better or keep them as they are.
“This is the nature of the Saudi monarchy, who are oppressing the people in their country. But now it’s very clear that they’re oppressing their own female members. The king who is portrayed in the international media – in the Western media – as a reformer, is oppressing his own daughters; healthy adult women, who have been held for ۱۳ years…they’re being starved deliberately,” he said.
Ch/L – nsnbc 31.05.2014
Source Article from http://nsnbc.me/2014/05/31/saudi-king-abdullah-starves-daughters-for-womens-rights-advocacy/
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